Fei Du1, Alissa
Cooper2, Thida Thida2, Selma Sehovic2, Scott
Lukas1, Bruce Cohen1, Xiaoliang Zhang3, Dost
Ongur1
1McLean
Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, MA, United States; 2McLean
Hospital, Belmont, MA, United States; 3Department of Radiology,
University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
Schizophrenia (SZ) is a common and severe brain disorder associated with poor functional outcome. Despite suggestions of abnormal mitochondrial and bioenergetic function in SZ, creatine kinase (CK) reaction rate, a direct biomarker of bioenergetics, has not previously been measured in vivo. Here, we report our primary results using a novel 31P MRS approach; the CK reaction rate was found a substantial reduction in SZ. Therefore we provided first direct and compelling in vivo evidence for a specific bioenergetic abnormality in SZ, which would provide crucial information for understanding underlying molecular mechanism, and novel targets for drug development in SZ.